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Lee Donaghy

Back to School Part 4: Planning

2020-09-02T14:06:11+01:00August 23rd, 2014|Featured|

This series of #backtoschool blogs summarises much of my thinking as it’s developed over the past few years and is aimed at new or recently qualified teachers. Each area has been distilled to 5 ‘top tips’ which I hope prove useful to anyone embarking on a career in teaching. That said, I’ll be delighted if they serve as handy reminders for colleagues somewhat longer in the tooth. So far in this back to school series we've covered establishing clear routines, building relationships and an awareness of the need to make language and literacy explicit in lessons. This next post concerns itself with the time consuming business [...]

What I've learned about functional grammar

2014-03-06T18:42:37+00:00March 6th, 2014|literacy|

Yesterday I had the good fortune to listen to Professor Mary Schleppegrell from the University of Michigan talk about how functional grammar is having an impact on EFL students in US schools. Ever since reading Lee Donaghy's evangelistic account of its importance I've been batting it around and trying work out what to do with it. But I'm a big fan of traditional grammar teaching and I couldn't really see the point in teaching pupils another grammar system. How would they actually use it? So beyond getting my head round the principles, I've largely ignored it. Now though, I see the light. As Lee [...]

What is (or isn't) language doing in PGCE?

2013-10-28T09:14:44+00:00October 28th, 2013|literacy, training|

After yesterday's post on the subject of how to improve the PGCE, Lee Donaghy tweeted me to point out that I had neglected to mention the importance of trainee teachers learning knowledge about language, and specifically how language works in the particular subject in which they are training. He suggested writing a guest blog on this topic to add to my original blog and, naturally, I agreed. If you're unclear who Lee is I why I would jump at the chance of putting up a guest post from him, have a quick look at his blog, What’s language doing here? Then, when you've appreciated [...]

Teaching sequence for developing independence Stage 3: Scaffold

2013-07-19T14:15:02+01:00July 2nd, 2013|Featured, learning, Teaching sequence|

So, you've explained the new concepts and ideas students will need to know, deconstructed examples so that they know how to use these concepts in practice and you've modelled the process of how an expert would go about creating an effective example of whatever product students need to create. Surely they're now ready to be released, joyfully, on to the foothills of independent learning? No, not quite yet they're not. Everyone benefits from scaffolding to help move them from kind of knowing vaguely what to do to being confident. Confidence is key; if students lack it then they're really going to [...]

Teaching sequence for developing independence Stage 2: Model

2014-04-21T21:48:10+01:00June 30th, 2013|English, Featured, learning, Teaching sequence|

Over the past few years I've thought a lot about how and what we should teach. My journey has been long and painful. I used to evangelically promote the teaching of transferable '21st century skills' like creativity and problem solving. Now I reckon that actually these skills might be subject specific, and that solving a maths problem might be very different to solving a problem in English. And perhaps being creative in science may possibly be fundamentally different to creativity in history. I used to be firmly convinced that everything students needed to know could be outsourced to Google. Why bother learning [...]

Independence vs independent learning

2013-09-28T20:12:33+01:00June 20th, 2013|literacy, myths, Teaching sequence|

Last weekend #SLTchat was on fostering students' independence. As you'd expect, there were lots of great suggestions shared, as well as some not so great ideas. One comment I tweeted in response to the idea that to promote independence we should get students learning independently got quite a lot of feedback: This seemed to really divide opinion; some people got upset with me, and some others agreed enthusiastically. Having read Daisy Chistodoulou's fabulously well-researched, cogently argued and clearly expressed eBook Seven Myths About Education, my thoughts on teacher talk and independent learning have started to coalesce. On Tuesday this week I [...]

Mind your language – a language based approach to pedagogy

2013-07-21T07:55:36+01:00March 29th, 2013|Featured, learning, literacy|

The most astonishing example of hyperbole ever! As the chap heading up Literacy at my school, I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking around the subject over the past year. I've become particularly interested in the need for oral language to develop written language and have been working with subject leaders to determine how students can think, speak and write like subject specialists. Kelly Hawkins, the head of Art at Clevedon School, has been getting her students to 'think like artists' for some time and it seemed a natural extension to work with teachers to encourage students [...]

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